


At Peace

by sandy_s



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Astral Projection, F/F, F/M, Gen, Reunions, Saving Fred, Which Willow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22510885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandy_s/pseuds/sandy_s
Summary: Written for Which Willow 2019/2020. My prompt was what if Willow went back to save Fred? And I added, what if Buffy went with her and discovered that Spike was still alive? Willow POV.Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns all.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers, Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg, Winifred "Fred" Burkle/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	At Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gabrielle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabrielle/gifts).



> Author’s Note: This is unbelievably late, but I didn’t know the toll that moving around the same time as the due date would take on my mental and physical energy. It gets a little weird in here with some stuff I don’t really know about astral planes that I totally made up as I went and had the characters make commentary on the lack of clear rules. Haha. Super huge apologies for both being late and this probably odd take on how other planes of existence work!
> 
> Also, I just love writing Willow post-series, figuring herself out. And I’ve never written Willow POV so there’s that, too.
> 
> Completely unbetaed so sorry for any errors.
> 
> For Gabrielle because I always dedicate my Which Willow fics to her, and I miss her! :o)

Giles wasn’t lying to Angel when he said that I was unavailable. I wasn’t exactly traveling to the Himalayas though, but Giles didn’t know that. Only Buffy did. 

I was checking on the love of my life by astral projecting across planes of existence to see if somehow I could find out if she was at peace. It was something I would never have been able to do before I went dark, and it was something I could only do after I healed and found a way to be in touch with magic again without being held back by my own fears.

Thankfully, Buffy understood – understands. The First did a number on all of us – on what we think and how we feel. I couldn’t get the First’s projection in the library out of my head after all we lost – the people, the places, everything. I didn’t tell Xander about my plan because he’s still grieving for Anya, and I didn’t even know if I could do what I hoped to be able to do. 

Buffy actually talked me into trying. She said she wanted my mind to be at ease. I don’t know how much of her encouragement is tied to how she was at peace before we – before I – pulled her back here. 

In any case, it worked, and I discovered that Tara – my sweet Amazon – is at peace after everything she went through. There are no words to describe what I saw, heard, felt. She was indeed in a form of heaven. As if there could be any doubt. I shouldn’t have doubted. Astral projection doesn’t exactly allow emotional expression, but Buffy held me while the tears streamed down my face when I collapsed into a ball of emotion on my return. 

It couldn’t have been easy for her to learn that Tara was at peace when Buffy has no idea what happened to the love of her life. Spike died saving the world. And yes, I say love of her life because she loved him – loves him. I know my best friend, and though she couldn’t say it, she did. She loved him. I saw it in their actions – the way they looked at one another, touched one another, took care of each other. I saw it in the way that they were always hovering around each other like a moon orbiting a planet or a planet orbiting the sun. Actions speak louder than words – duh. Tara always said their auras were compatible even before he won his soul for her. I just wish – 

“Willow?” 

My head shoots up from where I’m packing an overnight bag. “Yeah?”

Buffy’s eyes are tight with worry; her mouth is a grim line. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“What do you mean? Going to L.A.?” I tuck the pair of socks I’m holding deep into the side of the duffel. 

“Yeah.” 

“Because you’re worried about seeing Angel, right?” I pick up my stack of blouses and add them. 

The sound of her zipper racing around is loud. “Yeah. Giles isn’t happy with him. Neither am I.” 

I shrug. “He’s toeing the grey line. Same as someone else you know.” 

Buffy evades the Spike reference, fiddling with the zipper on her own small suitcase. “Same as all of us sometimes. But this is different. He’s affiliated with Wolfram and Hart.”

“Evil law firm of evil law firms.” I’m nervous about even thinking about walking into the place – the lion’s den of dark magic and malevolent deeds. Still. “Fred’s really the sweetest though. I want to see if there’s something I can do to help her.” I just hope we’re not too late. “Thank you for coming with.”

Buffy smiles at me – the motion barely brightening her eyes. Before, she would have teased me about thinking Fred was sweet and maybe asked if there was something there that I didn’t want to admit. But that was a long time ago, and now, things are very with the serious, always with the serious. “Of course. We don’t get to do much together anymore.” That’s an understatement. 

“You okay about seeing Angel?” 

Buffy sighs, her shoulders rising a little in defiance of my implication that she isn’t okay about visiting Angel. “We’ve done it more than once now, Wil. It’s not like I’m a newly-heartbroken teenager or anything.”

“Still, there will be feelings.” It’s my half-attempt at interjecting the teasing.

It works. Buffy briefly twists her mouth to one side. “Probably.”

* * *

“What do you mean Spike’s alive?” Buffy demands, crossing her arms with a glare that belies the innocence of the twin braids spilling over her shoulders. 

Sinking into the sofa in Angel’s office, Wesley averts his eyes even though Buffy’s not addressing him. I’ve never seen so much grief there. I’ve seen him since Sunnydale, and the ex-Watcher’s changed – he’s changed a lot. I’m not sure the change was great before, and now that he’s newly devastated, he’s a broken mess with eyes puffy from crying and disheveled hair. I’ve been there; I know this grief and anguish.

But Buffy’s not addressing Wesley nor is she addressing the wide-eyed Gunn who looks like a deer in headlights. I don’t know the tall man well, but he doesn’t look comfortable in the suit he’s wearing. Why is he wearing a suit? Weirdness abounds.

Buffy is addressing Angel, who crosses his arms in parallel and scowls, probably out of jealousy. There’s something else in his eyes though, and I can tell it’s more than grief about Fred. . . it’s anger that Buffy’s moved on. Again.

“Spike’s not exactly important right now,” Angel half-growls at his ex. “Fred is the important person right now. It’s why you’re here.”

“I don’t really want to be here.”

“You made that perfectly clear with the whole Dana lack of showing up to help.” Angel raises his voice to match Buffy’s.

“I sent help!”

“That guy – Andrew – was _not_ helpful. In fact, he was the complete opposite of helpful!” 

“I sent Slayers! Several of them.” Buffy’s voice is edged with a tinge of sarcasm. Just a tinge. 

Angel sets one hand on his desk and leaned on it as if he is beyond irritated. That shift in position isn’t going to earn him any points with Buffy. “Slayers who showed up at the end of everything to take Dana away after we, Spike included, tracked her down and tried to help her when she wasn’t trying to kill everyone.”

“From what I hear, she was traumatized. That’s one thing that we’re learning. The spell we cast wasn’t exactly all with the good.” Buffy’s whole demeanor changes, her shoulders rounding a little and her eyes flicking away from Angel. She and I exchange a knowing look. We both feel the same about it. As if we need any more reasons to feel terrible about what we’ve done. Then, Buffy’s face shifts, and she’s back at Angel. “Spike helped?” She frowns as if just realizing what I’m realizing. “And Andrew didn’t tell me that Spike was alive? He’s going to be in so much trouble.” 

Angel sighs and goes back to the arm crossing. “It was Spike’s choice not to say anything. His choice not to go to you as soon as he popped out of that damned amulet.”

“He popped out of tha- that stupid necklace?” Buffy is flustered, and her voice softens as if she’s about to cry. 

“He did. Delivered in a package. I think Wolfram and Hart intended for me to wear it.” 

Buffy breezes over the part where Angel made it about him. “Oh my god. He was stuck?”

“And he came out as a ghost,” Gunn offered, seemingly trying to shift the flow of the fighting. “Couldn’t touch a damned thing. Almost got sucked into hell by this guy that we ended up locking away in basically a casket.”

I shiver and rub my arms. “Alive in it?”

Gunn nods. “Yeah.”

“That’s so creepy.” He and I have a little flow starting. Maybe we’ll shift our respective fearless leaders out of this tiff. 

“Speaking of creepy,” Wesley says almost so softly that I don’t understand him. 

Buffy isn’t totally made obtuse by her shock about Spike, and she softens. “Fred. This is about Fred. I’ll deal with Spike later.” Buffy lifts both eyebrows at Angel and adds, “And you.”

“Yes, what can I do?” I ask, my eagerness to help making me step forward and lean forward a little on the balls of my feet. I force myself to settle down, appear put together. I can do this – whatever magic it is. 

“Not much, I’m afraid.” Wesley barely speaks above a whisper. “She’s well and truly gone.”

“How do you know?” I ask. “There are lots of possibilities when someone. . . passes away.” Too gentle. We deal with death all the time. “When someone dies.”

“Illyria says her soul was burned up. Destroyed. Dissolved into nothing.” Wesley still isn’t making eye contact, but his hands make a little explosion-poof-gesture. Goddess, this is dismal.

“Illyria’s the hell god, right?”

Angel nods. “An old one.”

Buffy lifts both eyebrows. “In other words, super powerful and full of herself?” Her lips are drawn into a thin line as her eyes find mine again. “Sound familiar?”

She doesn’t have to explain Glory to me. “Of course.”

Angel’s not in the slow group either. “Older than Glory.”

“You don’t know that.” _You weren’t there_ hangs in the air even if Buffy doesn’t say it. She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter how old this Illyria is. She’s probably lying.”

“Spike and I already went to the Deeper Well to find out of a way to save her. The only way would be to take Illyria’s sarcophagus back to the Well.” Hearing Angel talk about Spike and how they’ve been working together is strange to me. There’s always been animosity there, and I can’t imagine what Buffy’s thinking to hear Angel so casually throw out Spike’s name like it’s no biggie.

“So, why don’t you do it. Is it impossible to move the sarcophagus or something? If you need help moving it, I got more than enough muscle to help with that part.” Buffy’s hiding her feelings and just sounds annoyed. 

“I could probably figure out a way to teleport it, too.” I can almost feel the shift I’d have to create in the world to do so, but I think I can do it. 

“No,” Angel says softly. “That can’t happen.”

“Why not?” Buffy asks.

“Because,” a familiar voice with a familiar British accent says from the doorway behind us, “it’d kill an awful lot of people in the doing of it.”

I pivot as Buffy does, and I step back to take in both their faces. 

Spike’s hair is still platinum blond and styled with curls, and he’s still wearing his duster. His eyes contain a mix of relief and love and terror as he gazes at Buffy as if he’s a man stumbling across a desert and finding an oasis at last. “Hello, pet.” He doesn’t even glance my way but acknowledges me with a “Red.”

Buffy’s careful with her feelings as always, and I see her wall off her feelings – the sadness and hurt. The only indication that she’s vulnerable is that her arms come uncrossed, her hands falling limply down. 

Neither of them move for a moment too long, and I almost will them to move toward each other, but I’m done with willing anyone to do anything if they don’t want to do it. So, I wait and watch along with everyone else in the room. 

Spike extends the olive branch first as he should because Buffy’s been grieving for a while now, not knowing. I’d be so devastated if Tara came back and didn’t look for me for months. An ache fills my heart for her, but I remind myself that she’s at peace and that stays my own grief. 

“Are you here to help Fred?” he asks with hope, his face saying he obviously wants to say a million other things. 

“Yeah.” Buffy searches his face, but I can tell she’s still uncertain. “I came with Willow. She’s the one who can help.”

“Maybe,” I say. As Spike moves toward the group, I ask, “How would moving the sarcophagus kill a lot of people?”

Angel’s voice cuts across the palpable emotion between Buffy and Spike. “Illyria’s essence would kill them as she moved around the world back to the Well.” 

“Oh. That’s not good.” My mind is racing, trying to figure out a way to prevent the deaths, some mystical way to force Illyria to not kill so many. I land on something almost immediately, and my heart starts to pound. “I-I think I can create a shift of some kind.”

“What do you mean?” Angel’s intensity and size as he pushes forward almost makes me lose my train of thought. I haven’t seen him that forceful since he was Angelus, and he grabbed me in the school. Though Spike tried to kill me and more than once, I’m less afraid of him, maybe because we spent a lot more time together when he didn’t try.

I instinctively find myself clustering up with Buffy and Spike like old times when we went patrolling in Sunnydale. Well, I never really patrolled with Buffy and Spike together, and the Buffybot doesn’t count. But that last battle counted. It counted a thousand percent, and now, I’m with them in the belly of a different sort of beast ala an evil law firm with people who are supposed to be good guys, only I’m not sure. So I fumble with my words. “N-not exactly a shift like time travel. More like a dimensional shift.”

“Like funneling Illyria to another dimension and leaving her. . . or his ass there?” Gunn asks from the shadows near Wes.

“She’ll just escape from that. A dimensional change won’t hold her for long,” Wes manages. “And neither will a time change.”

I huff a little, but I resist the urge to insist I wasn’t finished. That won’t help anything. “More like a temporary shift slash change. To get her. . . or him from one place to another without hurting anyone. I’m assuming Illyria will move fast?” 

“Like a tunnel of some sort?” Spike asks from behind me. His familiar voice is a relief even if he has been a doofus and not told us he’s back. 

I nod a little too vigorously. “Yeah. One that I’ll close as soon as Illyria’s back in the Well and in the sarcophagus.” There’s something else though. 

Wesley says it before I can. “Fred’s soul. All will be for naught if we don’t know if there’s a soul to be returned to her body.”

“Or if her soul is at peace,” Buffy adds with emotion in her tone. She touches my shoulder to reassure me that she’s okay. She’s right, of course. That’s the most important part.

“How can we possibly know that?” Angel asks. He must have realized that he frightened me because his question softens almost as soon as he starts. 

“Astral projection,” I answer with more confidence than I feel. Finding Tara was one thing; we are. . . were. . . are deeply connected. I have little connection with Fred beyond my visit to put Angel’s soul back in place once again. “Combined with a little magic beyond that. I just need something of Fred’s that might contain a trace of her essence.” 

“Speaking of the god king, where is Illyria?” Spike asks.

“Lorne is ‘entertaining’ her,” Gunn says and then adds, “She’s a lot less powerful since Wesley here figured out a way to siphon off some of her powers. She can’t bend time or skip around dimensions all willy nilly anymore. _That_ was bad.” 

“That would make my plan sorta not work at all,” I say, wondering what else Angel’s gang might be leaving out. 

Spike hesitates but then says, “I’ll relieve him.” 

When I glance his way and note that Buffy doesn’t, he shrugs one shoulder. “Blue likes me.”

* * *

“How are you doing?” Buffy asks me when we’re finally alone for a moment in the law firm’s giant magic herb closet. 

A bit overwhelmed by the size and scope of the inventory, which is way bigger than the Magic Box’s ever thought about being, I scan the shelves and ask the same thing in return, “How are you doing? I mean, with the whole Spike’s alive slash undead thing?”

Buffy follows my lead in scanning for the herbs on my list. “I was more thinking about how you’re about to have to do the same thing you got done doing. The thing that practically sucked the life out of you.” 

“Oh, that.” I wave a dismissive hand at her. “All in a day’s work.”

“Looking for Tara took more than a day, and it wasn’t nothing,” Buffy persists. Her eyes light on something on a high shelf. “Do you need ‘Montana White Sage’? It’s the same color as the sage you used. I can’t remember what you called it. It’s white. And it’s sage. That’s about all I got.”

“Yes! And you’re thinking about Grandfather White Sage. It’s the same thing.” I bite my lip. “Tara just preferred to call it Grandpa Sage. She said her grandpa was always nice to her.”

“Really?” Buffy sounds skeptical as she should.

“On her mom’s side.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Buffy bends at the knees and jumps up, adroitly plucking the sage off the shelf.

“Wish I could do that,” I admit, accepting the jar with a grin and a little groan at the weight. I set it on the large sorting table and put a checkmark next to one of the ingredients on my list.

“You could. Magic yourself to fly? Or the earth to push you up?”

The corner of my mouth goes up. Old me, pre-dark-me would have been all over that. Not anymore. “Not if there’s a handy dandy stepladder.” I nod at the ladder on wheels attached to the shelves. 

Buffy’s eyes widen a little. “Oh.” She nods at me. “What else is on the list?”

“Just two more things, which I think I saw over there. Can you find this one?” I show her the list before angling toward the second to last row. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

Buffy follows me. “Ditto.”

“You first.” I scan the shelves, trying to match my vague memory of the herb with what I was seeing now in the neatly lined up jars. Evil law firms were organized. Was that like a requirement or something? It made me think of Julia Roberts’ husband in _Sleeping with the Enemy._ Oz and I had rented it and snuggled up together on his sofa under a blanket on one of our first date nights. He’d let me bury my face in his neck when the tuba started playing. 

Maybe because we’re both focused on the search, Buffy opens up. “I just wanted to touch him, Will. I just wanted to feel him to make sure he was whole and real. B-but I couldn’t.”

“And it wasn’t because Angel was there.” I have to ask. 

“No!” Buffy’s emphatic and immediate denial makes me believe her. 

“Then, why didn’t you hug him? If it were Tara. . .” My fingers trace over the smooth surface of one jar. Its contents aren’t quite right.

“Spike and I are different than you and Tara. Were. We were different than you and Tara. Past tense.” Buffy sounds like she might start crying.

“Not from where I was standing.” I’m avoiding looking at Buffy because she’s better at talking this way.

“He didn’t come find me,” Buffy says softly.

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. It means he cares a lot.”

“That makes no sense. I mean, I guess it does because Angel did the same thing. Stayed away because he loved me.” She pauses for half a second. “God! That’s not what I want! That’s not the Spike I know. I don’t understand. I don’t.” She’s crying now for sure because she’s stopped her search, and she’s leaning a little on the shelf in front of her. She lets me put my arm around her shoulders, and she whispers, “What do you mean?” Her question tells me that she wants to know what I saw. She wants to know it’s different than what she fears. 

“Spike can’t hide his feelings, Buffy. It was written all over his face as soon as he saw you.” 

“What was?”

“Fear, love, hope. And loneliness.” So, maybe that last part is a little bit of a projection. Kennedy isn’t the same as Tara or Oz. Kennedy has moments of empathy and emotional intelligence, but for the most part, she’s not so intuitive about feelings. And I think I kinda need that. Huh. 

“You think?” My friend has been so lonely since Sunnydale collapsed under the power of Spike’s soul. 

“I know. Do you even know what you want from him?” I lean my head on Buffy’s.

“I don’t know. But I love him. I know that part. But love isn’t enough.” She trembles.

I squeeze her. “It’s not enough. You’re right. But Spike’s not Angel. You have to talk to him to find out why he didn’t come find you. Maybe he knows what Angel’s doing isn’t so great. Maybe he wants to help him.”

“Spike help Angel? Pfff.” I catch the humor in her tone.

“Maybe he’s been really caught up in everything. And maybe he’s let himself because he’s afraid to get hurt.” 

“Maybe.”

“You have to talk to him.” I really wish I could put Buffy and Spike in a room together and lock the door and tell them to hash it out like Xander and I did when Buffy and Cordelia were being poopheads around homecoming. “If you just open the door a crack, I bet he’ll spill like a prisoner being held captive and tortured by the military.” 

Buffy lifts her head and offers me a watery smile. “He might actually like it if I tortured him a little.” 

“Life’s too short for games.” Don’t I know it. Tara is at peace. I have to remember that feeling I had of knowing she’s at rest and happy. Not everyone gets to know that their loved ones are okay and where they are.

“Understatement of the century.”

“Totally.” I bite my lip and release Buffy. It’s my turn. I take a deep breath. “I’m nervous about all of this.”

Buffy turns toward me, sniffing and wiping her eyes with one hand. “What part is all of it?”

I start to pace as my anxiety ratchets up. “I feel like we don’t know everything. They have to be leaving something else out, right? I mean, Spike’s back. We didn’t know that. Illyria could bend time and dimensions. We didn’t know that until they let it slip. What if. . . what if, we get trapped here in this law firm? Forever.” 

“Catastrophize much?” Buffy teases but only half-heartedly. “But seriously, yeah. I agree. This place gives me the. . .” She shudders. “I want to leave as soon as possible.”

“It’s worse than the hellmouth,” I insist. Before I used magic, I didn’t feel anything on the hellmouth, but after I started tapping into things, the hellmouth always felt like a little prickle on the back of my neck, telling me to stay alert. 

Buffy gives me a look. “We got used to the hellmouth.” I know Buffy used to feel it, too; she told me once during one of our sleepovers after we ate too much Kung Pao chicken and watched _Titanic_ again. 

“True.” I head back to my previous search, scanning the shelves. “And I’m nervous about what they’ll do if Fred can’t be found. Like, what if Illyria’s not lying? Will they completely lose it like I did? I don’t want to think about what will happen if they do, and they have these global resources on their hands.”

“At least, we’ll know they’re freaking out.” Buffy resumes her own search.

“And if Fred’s at peace? What do I do then?”

Buffy is quiet for a moment and then asks, “When you found Tara, could you have communicated with her if you wanted to?”

Could I have? My mind didn’t let me go there at the time. I didn’t want to disturb a thing about her heaven. “Maybe. Probably. I didn’t.”

“I know. I’m glad you felt good about letting her be, but with Fred, maybe you could ask her what she would want? I mean, I wouldn’t say no now because it’s done, and I’m okay. But I would have liked the choice.” Buffy so rarely talks about how she came back and how it impacted. . . impacts her, so it’s nice to hear her open up a little about it. Still, I feel the strong pang of guilt that always comes with it. It’s probably why she doesn’t talk to me about how she came back. I often wonder if she talked to Spike about it. I hope she did because I hope she had a space to have her feelings if it couldn’t be me or any of us that brought her back.

“I think I could do that.” My fingers land on the next herb we’ve been looking for, and sliding glass over metal, I pull the jar behind it, which is fuller. 

“Keeping in mind that a few days here could mean decades in her place of peace.”

“Right,” I say. “This is all too complicated.”

“Agreed. Life is way too complicated, but we’ll figure this piece out. I have your back.” Buffy finds her target and brings the jar over. “Speaking of complicated, how’s Kennedy?”

“She’s. . . loving being a Slayer and loving getting to play hero.” Kennedy and I have been together in South America, rounding up Slayers and helping them stave off the vampires attacking their loved ones if we can. If I’m honest with myself, I’m bored. The action isn’t boring. There’s always a new crisis, but now that the hellmouth is closed, I wonder if this is what I want my life to be. The work we’re doing leaves little time for me to really absorb the culture and learn about the magics used in the southern countries, and if I’m really honest, it makes me resentful. “I don’t know if that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

“What? Rescuing the Slayers we created and didn’t give a choice to?” Buffy’s regret is palpable. She shakes her head. “We all need a change of pace. A way to feel like we’re digging our way out of this hole. You could join us in England. Giles is working with the leftover Watchers to start a training program. Dawn and I are supposed to join them after this; I didn’t get a chance to tell you on account of Tara and everything.” Buffy has really been there for me. 

“Maybe. Is Xander coming?” I miss my other best friend. He’s been sort of incommunicado since Anya died. 

“Yes. If I have to, I’ll drag him kicking and screaming back from Africa where he’s moping around. You could come with to help with the dragging.” Buffy perks up at this idea. “And you could even bring Kennedy. I’ll try not to roll my eyes too much when she gets – ” 

“Uppity?” I accept the jar of herbs from Buffy and say in a rush, “I think I need to break up with Kennedy. After seeing Tara again, experiencing her. I want something more than what I’m getting with Kennedy.”

Buffy touches my arm and draws me into another hug with the jar between us. “And you deserve that.”

I relax into her embrace, grateful to be with my friend again. “I miss you, too.”

“I miss you.” She pulls back. “This is gonna sound majorly odd given that we’re hanging out in a den of evil, but I’m kinda glad that we’re together.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Spike says, interrupting our girl moment. His voice is low and heavy with emotion. “I know I shouldn’t be disturbing you, and I have no right to come here right now. But I have something to say.”

“I’ll just take these over here,” I say, starting to move away from them, to give them a moment of semi-privacy.

Spike holds up a hand, keeping his eyes on Buffy. “No, stay.” I realize that he doesn’t want me to be separated from Buffy and that maybe he, too, gets the heebie-jeebies from Wolfram and Hart. 

I halt in my tracks and wait, awkwardly balancing the large containers in both arms.

Spike starts before Buffy can say a word. “I know that there’s not much I can say right now to excuse what’s been done. What I’ve done. Again. To you. I don’t even know if you care enough to be impacted by me not telling you I’m back. But I want you to know that. . . that I still care how you are.” His blue eyes are bright with unfallen tears. He turns his head away and blinks a bit rapidly, so they don’t slip over his cheeks. “I was bloody well. . . now that you’re here, I realize that I was bloody well stupid not to tell you even if you didn’t – ”

Buffy flies across the room then, throwing her arms around him, and I feel immense relief at this. She holds him tightly, and I recognize how good it must feel for her to put all her strength behind hugging someone so tightly. 

Buffy’s voice is muffled. “You’re really here.” She touches his chest with her open palm and then caresses his cheek. “You’re really here.”

“I am. I’m so sorry, pet.” 

Now that they’re both crying, tears slide down my own cheeks, and I think of Tara and how much I wanted to reach out to her but didn’t let myself. That was different though. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss her and that my arms don’t ache to hold her again. I just want her to be happy and at peace. My sweet girl deserves that. I’ll take the vicarious reunion of Buffy and Spike and let myself relish their joy.

“I love you, you idiot,” Buffy says, and I’m taken aback by how openly she says the words she’s only ever said to Angel. “I thought you knew. I mean, I know you didn’t believe me.” Wait. What? Buffy told Spike she loved him, and he didn’t believe her?

“I’m a right berk.” He touches her forehead to hers. 

“If you are, then, I am, too. I should have told you sooner.” 

Buffy slides her hands down to his. “You have to come with us when we’re done here.”

“I don’t know, love. Angel. . . he’s in a bit of a pickle, and his crew is, too. It’s part of why I’m still here. That and trying to sort myself out. Figuring out where I fit in.” Huh. That sounds familiar.

I find my voice and infuse my tone with all the earnestness I can muster. Even before Spike saved the world, he bent over backward to be a better person. “You fit in with us. You have for a long time, and we just never told you. We should have told you.”

Buffy smiles at me gratefully and gestures my direction. “You see. We need you. I need you.” The last sentence is laced with her insecurity. 

“You need me, eh?” He sounds surprised and as vulnerable as her.

“Of course. I mean, I don’t know if you believe me yet, and you may not, but I do love you. And I know love’s not enough. I get that. But I – ”

Spike kisses her then, a tender, gentle, hesitant brush of his lips over hers. Buffy leans into the kiss when he draws back, kissing him a bit longer in return but mindful of her audience. 

Buffy tentatively asks, “Does that mean. . . ?”

Spike can’t stop staring at her almost like he’s afraid to move, to mess up what might be happening. “God, Buffy. I still love you, too.” 

“Oh, thank god.” She hugs him again. 

The jars are big and very heavy, and I’m suddenly aware of how big and heavy they are. This whole place contains more herbs than I could probably use in a lifetime. “I’m just gonna go over here, and you guys should, um, maybe find somewhere private to be.” 

Buffy reaches out as I pass them, grabbing my arm and relieving me of one of the jars. “No. I’m not leaving you alone in this place. You’ll just have to put up with a little handholding.” She slides her free hand back into Spike’s. Oh, that kind of handholding. 

I grin at them. “Okay.” 

“And you,” she addresses Spike, “you need to tell us what you know about this place and what’s going on with Illyria and Angel. And at some point, I need to know what happened to you.”

Spike lifts an eyebrow. “Alright.”

“Good. We have a plan,” Buffy says, sounding more confident than I’ve heard her even over the phone in another country or three.

* * *

Angel is staring at me as I set things up for the astral projection piece. He looks uncomfortable though, and I don’t know if it’s because he sees the connection between Spike and Buffy in a new light or if it’s because we’re casting the spell in his private and very modern apartment – an apartment he has an elevator to and everything. It’s like he lives in the law firm. 

“You got everything you need?” he asks tentatively, almost back to the hesitating Angel I remember from Sunnydale, and I almost feel sorry for him. I didn’t ever hate Angel. Buffy loved him, and I wanted her to be happy. 

I glance around. There are the candles, a circle of a concoction of herbs that Buffy and Spike carefully set up, Fred’s hairbrush with several strands of her long hair woven among the prongs, and me sitting in a lotus position in the circle. Spike has gone to help Wesley and Gunn distract Illyria, and Buffy is hovering next to Angel and fidgeting anxiously. 

“I do. Now, I just need to focus. You two should go in the other room and have a talk.” That is, they need to talk about Spike. The energy between Buffy and Angel is totally going to mess with my ability to work efficiently. 

They both stare at me without even peeking at each other. 

I wave both hands at them and set my resolve-face. “Now. Go. Try not to emote in my direction.”

Buffy frowns. “I’m not leaving you alone.” She hadn’t left me alone on my journey to find Tara. I came out of my trance to find her sleeping in a sleeping bag just outside my circle.

“Please.” I turn to the vampire for assistance. “Angel, tell her that your apartment is the safest place in this law firm.”

Angel looks confused. “Well, I can’t exactly – ” I lift both eyebrows at him, and he mumbles, “My apartment is pretty safe all things considered.”

Buffy searches my face and must decide that she can’t out-stubborn me. “Fine, but I’m keeping you in my sight. From the other room.”

The pair leaves, and I’m finally alone. Unlike in the past, I hardly ever have to say a word when I draw on the magic that permeates every cell of my being. I don’t even know if I need the herbs that this type of magic typically calls for, but for some reason, their presence brings me a sense of comfort and somehow makes it easier to come back to the world where I belong. 

Closing my eyes against the dim light from Angel’s bathroom and trying to block out the sound of Buffy and Angel’s soft voices, I focus on the feel of Fred’s hairbrush and the length of cells that make up her hair. With a fleeting thought and an internal whisper of will, I find myself detaching from my physical body and tugging along the shadow of Fred’s leftovers with me. 

It’s hard to describe what happens next; my experience is colorful, dull, loud, soft, rapid, and slow and would probably make anyone else nauseous and dizzy despite the lack of smell. But knowing that it doesn’t make sense for me to be physically sick makes all the difference, and my essence is able to dip and dive and weave in and out of distinctive dimensions and planes of existence, searching and hunting for some signature that matches the spirit and core of Fred. 

After an indeterminable amount of time, what I find are fragments. Unlike with Tara whose soul was intact and whole and distinctly her, Fred’s soul is in tiny pieces and flung into different dimensions. The thing about pieces is that they are still pieces. They aren’t burned up as Illyria described to Angel’s people. Pieces can be gathered up. 

The gathering takes a lot of mystical energy, and I find myself struggling and wavering. My body tries valiantly to pull me back and away, but I am nothing if not persistent. Resolve is my middle name and much better than Danielle. Gathering involves nothing so tactile as grasping or holding on; it’s more using my own self to nudge and gently herd the pieces together. I don’t know what I’ll do with them when they’re all gathered but – ohhhhh. 

The parts of Fred’s soul naturally gravitate toward one another when they’re close enough to one another, and without me doing a thing, they fuse together in a blinding silvery-white light that makes me turn partially away. For the first time, I smell something – something warm and sugary like snickerdoodle cookies baking in the oven. As the light fades, I bob back around and discover the translucent incorporeal image of Fred before me. She smiles - a big wide smile that makes her nose crinkle and her eyes sparkle. She opens her mouth to speak but has no voice. 

_Hi!_ Returning her smile, I give her a little wave and send a thought floating her way. _Send me your thoughts._ It’s like the magic I used to help me communicate with the others in Sunnydale but more instinctual and intuitive.

Her eyes widen when she sort of hears me. She frowns in concentration and then she closes her eyes. _Willow, hi! Where are we?_ When she opens her eyes again, the smile returns in half-jubilation, half-concern.

_Something happened to your spirit. The long and short of it is that you were knocked out of your body by a god king, and I’m here to bring you home._ Well, there were a lot of other moving parts, but that summed it up nicely.

Her eyes grow more round. _I died?_

_You. . . sort of. But I’m going to find a way to put you back together._ I try to exude confidence I don’t feel. No need for her to panic. 

_Like you did with Buffy?_ Fred doesn’t look frightened or angry at this thought, but panic rises within me anyway.

_Not like with Buffy. It’s different._ I’m not sure how different, but it is. 

_How long have I been gone? Oh my god._ Tears fill Fred’s eyes. Do souls cry? _Wesley! How is he?_

_You haven’t been gone long, and Wes is a mess without you. I’ve never seen him so depressed or. . . scruffy._

_Oh god. I wonder if he blames himself. I hope not._ I don’t know what she’s talking about at all. More missing information.

_I don’t know if he does, but he’s very sad. Grieving. Illyria is not cooperating. She. . . he almost killed everyone. They had to put a dampener on her power._ Spike filled me in on that before I did the ritual. 

_Can you put me back? Like you did with Angel’s soul? Give me a chance to kick out the intruder?_ Fred’s eyes are bright with determination. 

Her idea makes me think of Angel taking in Eyghon to kill him. _I-I’m not sure how to make that happen._ After putting Fred’s soul back together again, I don’t know if I have enough energy to get us back to the physical plane much less take on Illyria myself.

A frown graces her features. _You look tired._ I can tell by the way she’s studying me that the wheels are turning in her mind. _You put me back together again already, didn’t you?_

Fred’s apparition suddenly flings her arms around me, and somehow, I _feel_ it. Her embrace isn’t exactly like a normal hug – more just warm and comforting with a tiny bit of pressure. I kind of want to fall asleep now and not because I had a crush on Fred, just because it’s so. . . peaceful. And I wonder in that moment if this is just the tiniest fraction of the peace Buffy felt in heaven. 

As the resulting guilt and regret at the realization wash over me, I back pedal away from Fred, and she gazes at me with concern. 

_What’s wrong?_

I shake my head at her, unable to form a coherent thought. The emotion – the emotion is like a tidal wave. No, it’s a monsoon. And I suddenly don’t know which way is up or down or any direction. Terror overcomes me next, and I experience an overwhelming urge to push away from Fred and hurtle back into my physical body and pretend like I never found her because goddess knows, I can’t go there again. Not ever. Not ever, ever, ever.

_Willow, wait!_ Fred’s voice is tinier and farther away, but she brings me back, gives me something to hold onto for a moment. _This wouldn’t be like with Buffy. It’s my choice. I want to go back. I don’t want to be. . . decimated._

I blink, and the world is suddenly sort of upright again, as much as an astral plane can be. _Oh. Are you sure?_

Fred glides up to me and puts a shimmering hand on my arm. Her brown eyes are wide and earnest. _I’m sure as sure can be._

I inhale an unneeded breath. _Okay. I don’t exactly know how I’ll get you back in your body because before there was a sacrifice and a terrifying ritual. But that was before I absorbed a whole bunch of magic-related stuff that lets me do without the spell and ritual most of the time._

_And you’re tired from putting me back together again._

_Yes. I can’t seem to think clearly enough to formulate an idea when before my brain was far less fuzzy. I think I need to go back to my own body soon to recharge._

_What do you need me to do?_ Fred’s thought sounds worried.

_Follow me and stay close._ A random notion pops into my head. _I think you might need to come back with me. Into my body with me. That’s the only way I can think to get your soul back into our plane of existence with the amount of strength I have left._ I actually have no idea if I can even pull that off. Oh goddess, help me. 

Fred’s expression tells me she’s skeptical. I don’t blame her. Still, she acquiesces. _Okay. I can do that._

Reaching out with the bits of magic I can scrounge up and utilize, I guide us back toward my body. Thank goodness for my living body; it’s my compass back home, always trying to pull me back. I relax into the motion this time, and it’s less hectic the way trips home often are. Fred tolerates it well, too, and I’m colored a rainbow full of colors impressed. 

I regard her. _Are you ready?_

Fred nods. _Yes. Let’s go back and get my –_

A loud, screeching noise cuts off what Fred was about to say, and my eyes slam shut as my hands automatically go to my ears though the attempts at protecting myself do nothing because the attack is psychic. Fred’s mind screams into the ether, but I can barely make it out over the din. After several seconds of agony, the sound begins to fade, and I recognize it as another voice crying out in anger and anguish. 

As my pain subsides, I slit my eyes and see a huge, jagged tear in the astral plane. The gash is edged in yellow-orange flames, and there is a giant creature with waving arms coming through the opening along with several writhing tentacles and an enormous bug-like head. 

_No! No, no, no, no, no._ Fred is in a panic, and I don’t know why. 

All I know is that this demon creature is bigger than the Mayor, and I’m seriously tapped out. Fred, if you know something, now is the time to say so. 

But Fred is mute as one of the creature’s uber-long tentacles rushes forward and scoops her up, covering her mouth before she can even scream. I dodge another tentacle rushing at me, shooting it with a little zap of magical energy. The monster emits another screech only much deeper and short-lived, and I’m swept up in the powerful grip of another tentacle. My brain doesn’t have time to make sense of how this is all working given the different planes of existence, but it is, and there’s something in the tentacles that’s affecting me because the world is suddenly very blurry. 

_Let go of them!_ Buffy cries out. 

I blink and strain to see where her voice is coming from, and I catch a flash of blonde hair far below. 

_Blue, you know you don’t want to do this._ That’s Spike. 

_You do not know what you ask of me, my pet._ Is that Illyria? _The human whose body I wear cannot survive this. It is not admissible. She must be decimated, so I may continue. It is the only way._

I am completely helpless with my arms pinned and my mind a muddled mess, and getting waved around is making me nauseous even though I don’t have a body. . . though even that I’m confused about. Still. I have to try something because Buffy and Spike can’t do much in this realm of things. 

Buffy and Spike continue moving around Illyria. Their voices are coming from all different directions, and I vaguely realize they’re trying to distract the god king, maybe for me. I try and center myself, blotting out everything around me and even within me as I did in Angel’s bedroom. I think inanely of Oz and his Zen-ness when he came back to Sunnydale. He learned to focus his mind as I had to learn to do after killing Warren and taking in so much magic and almost destroying the world. I had to push past all the distractions, especially my emotional upheaval about everything I did. Now, it was a little different; the distractions were different, but I did it before, I could do it again. 

I focus on the growing magic within me. As each second ticks by, another distraction falls away until the truth dawns on me.

Illyria has abandoned Fred’s body. To be here now, the god king is vulnerable. The laws of the earthly plane do not apply here. 

Duh.

Gathering up what little magic I have left, I somehow wrest free of the god king’s grip, and it’s surprisingly easy like how a jar that’s impossible to open suddenly pops loose. 

As soon as I’m free, the fuzziness fades, and I find myself next to Buffy. 

She gives me a once-over. _You okay?_

I give her a wavering smile. _You’re here. Without your body. How?_

_Not now. Can you help with Fred?_

_Oh. Yeah._

I search and find Fred still held captive. My magical tank is less on empty than I thought as anger fuels me. The god king reminds me of Warren, and I want to send him (her?) back to the appropriate prison. I don’t want to kill Illyria. Go, me!

I fling a wave of mystical energy at the tentacle holding Fred’s spirit even as Buffy and Spike distract Illyria with more words that I’m not focusing on. I’m only focused on the trajectory of my aim, and the hit lands true.

Illyria cries out in agony, and Fred is loose! Spike zooms up and pulls her away.

As Buffy and Spike continue their mission to distract Illyria, my mind races to figure out what we can possibly do next other than get the hell back to the physical world and somehow trap Illyria’s essence here. 

And suddenly, someone else pops into existence next to me, and I about have a heart attack if I can even have a heart attack here. _Wesley!_

He’s still scruffy and looking too thin, and he’s carrying some sort of funky looking mechanical device, which he aims at me. Laws of physics. . . what laws of physics? None of this makes any sense. 

_What are you doing?!_ I mind-shout in alarm at him. 

He winces but sets his jaw. _Just hold still, Willow!_

_Why – ?_

Wesley fires the device at me, and I feel a jolt of electricity penetrate and ripple through my body almost like I’m being pricked by thousands of needles at once. It’s my turn to scream. Halfway through the psychic scream, the sensation shifts into something else altogether.

Bewildered and panicked at how heady I feel, all I can do is ask, _What did you - ?_

_Juiced you up. The opposite of what we did to Illyria. You need to open that tunnel you described to us._ He’s serious. 

_I dunno._ It’s my turn to hate every bit of this. I haven’t felt like this since. . . since, well, Sunnydale and Tara. In the back of my mind, I hold onto that knowledge that she’s at peace. 

_I’m sorry. I did it to myself, too, if that helps._ There’s a mix of regret and certainty in his eyes. 

It helps. . . a little. _We’ll do this together?_

He nods. _If you can provide the guidance, I’ll add my limited abilities to yours._ Wesley is so much with the humble now. 

_Of course._ And maybe in this world of bendy, unexpected rules, we’ll be able to pull this off.

Illyria suddenly looms before us and hesitates when she sees Wesley. He flinches under the god king’s scrutiny, and tentacles hover millimeters from his face and abdomen. 

I use that momentary diversion to funnel the renewed magic, shaping it and willing it to become a. . . holy crap.

A vortex opens wide and fast, all glowing with scarlets and oranges, and without a sound, Illyria and only Illyria is sucked away. 

I barely have time to focus on the exit to the tunnel I’m forming with more speed than I’ve ever worked, trying to stay ahead of Illyria’s flying essence. A laugh escapes my lips at how seamless this seems to be going. Where was the Deeper Well? Oh, yeah. New Zealand. The magic tendrils tell me when I’ve reached the entrance into the earth, plunging downward and straining to find the location where Illyria’s sarcophagus was located until recently. The earth forms and molds with my ministrations, creating a new resting place to catch and trap the god king. 

Illyria’s spirit thunks against the inside of the tomb, and I slam the locks in place even as tendrils bounce back and try to escape. In a rush, the magic releases, and I go completely limp, just as depleted as before. 

The world around me flicks red and black, and I feel my eyes (really?) roll up into my head. I barely hear Buffy’s cry of fear. _Willow!_

* * *

When my brain comes back online, the first thing I hear is a beeping sound, the steady rhythm thrumming in time to the pounding in my head. I blink in the dim light and see that I’m in a hospital bed with someone sitting next to me.

“Buffy,” I croak, shifting around and testing my limbs a little. 

Buffy lifts her head and emits a little gasp of relief. “Willow.” She clasps my hand in both of hers, being mindful of the IV in the back of my hand.

“W-what happened?” That one question contains a multitude of other questions. 

“A lot. But the main thing is that everyone’s alive. . . or undead or whatever.” There is relief in her green eyes beyond the exhaustion. “Illyria could sense whatever you were doing with Fred’s soul, and she sniffed out where you were. Wesley and Spike came along, and Wesley did that thing with the magic, power thingie. Don’t ask me how. And ended up helping up jump in after Illyria when she crossed over. Angel stayed back to watch our bodies and get more help if needed.”

“How's Fred?” 

“Alive. Back in her body where she belongs. Wesley’s in the room next door with her. Everyone’s getting checked out. I think he might still be asleep.” She catches the worry on my face. “Don’t worry. He closed the portal and helped with Fred’s soul after you blacked out. He was still conscious until Fred was okay, and then, he passed out. Asleep. Not because he had a head injury or anything. Can he get a head injury in wherever we were?” 

The corner of my mouth lifts in amusement. “I was wondering the same thing.”

“There was a whole lotta physics that didn’t make much sense in there.” She frowns and looks a little sad. “But it was familiar, too. The feeling of it.” 

Angel appears as if he was hiding in the shadows. He touches her shoulder as if he knows what she was referring to. He probably does. “That must have been hard.” 

Placing her hand over his, she smiles up at him in that way she used to look at him when we were younger and so easily fell in love, before he left her. I can’t help but wonder where Spike is. Then, I realize she’s in a hospital gown, too. 

Before I can ask any more questions, Spike shows up in the doorway. He stands there frozen in his own gown, his face a mask of. . . I don’t know what emotion. 

Buffy stands then, her feet a clumsy mass of noise, and she reaches out for him. Angel remains next her with a quiet expression I can’t make sense of. It’s almost like he’s exuding a quiet confidence. 

Spike balks, like really flinches as if she’s hit him the way she used to before he got his soul for her. He looks like he wishes he could fall through the floor or flee, and I get why he’s having such a strong reaction. 

Buffy’s expression melts into confusion and then understanding. She shakes off Angel’s hand and stalks over to Spike where she tenderly strokes his cheek. 

Spike closes his eyes, and he sighs almost in defeat, and I just want to tell her to kiss him or do something to show him that she picks him over Angel. . . not that I want Angel to be unhappy. He deserves love, too; it’s just that I know how much my best friend has missed and longed for Spike in the last year. 

Then, Buffy kisses his cheek, mostly because she can’t get to his mouth. “Spike, I love you, remember?” She wraps her arms around his waist, and he finally holds her close. “I love you.” 

I can’t view Angel’s face, but like a man who knows when to exit, he edges around the embracing pair. He pauses in the doorway and affords me a half-turn of his head. His voice is heavy with emotion. “Thank you, Willow. I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know how you did it, but you did. Fred said she was torn apart, and you put her back together again. I owe you. . . another one.”

“You’re welcome,” I manage. 

When Angel is gone, Spike says, “I’m sorry, pet. It’s just he always. . .” 

“I know,” Buffy whispers. “Come on. Let’s sit down.” She takes him by the hand, tugging him toward the other hospital bed in the room. She throws up the guardrail, something I can never figure out how to operate, and orders, “Actually, lie down. You look pale. . . er than normal. And I’d love if you could hold me because I need to lie down, too.”

“As you command, love,” he teases softly. 

Soon, he and Buffy are cuddled up together, and I realize that this is what I miss most about Tara. I miss the comfort of being with her and knowing that she loved me just for me and that for the moments we were holding each other, everything was right and okay in the world even if chaos was happening in the rest of our lives. And I need to break up with Kennedy because I can’t see that ever happening with her. She’s just too. . . self-focused? I mean, I admit I’ve been in the past, but with Tara and even with Oz, things were just different. 

Sleep is nipping at my heels when Buffy asks, “Willow?” 

“Mmm. Yeah?” I open one eye to see her looking at me.

“You and Spike. You’re coming with me. We’re getting out of this law firm tonight if possible. That’s where we are right now, you know. There’s even a hospital here. And y-you could work with young witches. Train them. You’re so powerful, and you’ve overcome so much. I think you’d have a lot to offer them.”

“I dunno.” Even as I express doubt, Buffy’s words feel right. “Maybe.” 

“You could at least come along for a little while. So we could all be together.”

Oh, I need that. “O-okay.” 

“I mean, how do you feel after Wesley zapped you with all that power?” 

I’m surprised when I say, “I feel no different than I did before he did it.” And the words were true. Before, I’d been heady with power and angry, grief-stricken, and desperate. I don’t feel that way now. And I don’t feel any urges to go out and destroy anything or – 

Spike’s voice is rumbly and low like he’s about to fall asleep, too. “I agree with Buffy, Red. You’ve come a long way with magic. You’ve got lessons you could impart on the minds of young birds like yourself.” 

Buffy yawns and hugs Spike’s arm. “But first, sleep.”

I close my eyes as my friend closes hers and escape into dreams. For the first time in a long time, I feel at peace with my choices and decisions, at peace with the idea that maybe I have something to offer others besides my friends, and at peace with my ability to use magic without falling into an abyss of evil – even in this evil law firm and even if it’s not the same peace that comes with eternal rest. We just need to get out of here, but first, I need a little cat nap. 

The end.

1-31-20  
1:24 AM


End file.
